Mixing Medicines
by BlackBird47
Summary: Johanna Mason's time in District 13, in her own words- including all the things that Katniss didn't see, from the surprising romance that formed between two victors in secret during the rebellion to Johanna's uncensored thoughts on everything from the Mockingjay to the men in her life, as she discovers how dangerous it can be to mix your self-medications...


A/N- Just got back from seeing the awesomeness of "Catching Fire" again and was inspired to write a Johanna fic…she's always been one of my favorite characters just from reading the books, and I absolutely loved what Jena Malone brought to the character. This story is set during Mockingjay, picking up at Finnick and Annie's wedding, so Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, Haymitch, Annie, Prim, and all the other fellow District 13 dwellers will definitely be around, but the main focus will be on Miss Mason, the awesome axe-wielding Victor from District 7. I hope ya'll enjoy!

Mixing Medicines

"Are you going to miss the chance to let Snow see you dancing?"

Katniss turns to look at me, her dark blue-gray eyes confused. "What?"

"Cressida's going to make sure this video's all over the Capitol. You're the people's precious Mockingjay." I sit back in my chair. "Sitting here like a depressed asshole with the bitch who looks like a cancer patient isn't exactly the most inspiring sight. Go and do something epic and brave or something."

Katniss nods, giving me a vague smile, her long dark hair falling down her back in waves as she stands up and walks away, and I feel a pang of jealousy, rubbing one hand over my peach fuzz of dark hair that has grown back over the scabs and bruises on my head after my time in the Capitol where they savagely shaved it off, not caring when the razor went into my skin and drew blood that dripped down into my eyes, blood that I blinked away so I could continue to glare straight ahead, not showing them an ounce of weakness…I shake myself, not letting myself go back there. Frankly, I'm just glad they let me out of the District 13 hospital for the wedding. Waking up every morning in a hospital bed in a paper-thin hospital gown reminds me too much of how it felt to wake up as a Capitol prisoner with a Capitol medic (their nice word for torturer) standing over me, and I don't want to go back to my hospital bed tonight. I'm so tired of being a patient. But as much I fucking hate to admit it, I know I don't exactly look like a strong survivor ready to enter the fray of battle.

I'm wearing a dress I found in the stockpile Cressida put together for the formal occasion, and I think it was actually originally meant to be a slip to go under a dress, but I don't care. At least it kind of fits— it's some skimpy black thing that's barely clinging on to my too-thin frame, and I know I look like some creepy walking skeleton, whereas girls like Katniss and Annie and Prim look so beautiful and strong and tragically noble even after all they've lost, the kind of girls that Cressida wants to film for her propos, girls that would inspire people to stand up to fight against the Capitol. I wouldn't inspire anyone. Who the hell would want to end up a fucking mess like me?

I wish this wedding was already over with. Sometimes I wish everything was already over with. Sometimes I wish they'd just killed me in the Capitol. I look over at the seashell and wave covered cake, watching Cressida signaling the cameras to zoom in on Katniss now dancing with her perfect little sister in the middle of the dance floor. I see Finnick and Annie sitting at the head table, Finnick so happy he seems slightly dazed, Annie whispering something to him before he kisses her, Annie smiling against his mouth before she kisses him back…

"Fucking hell…" I roll my eyes, turning away. This is nauseating. The whole thing. Everyone playing happy fucking family like some little party erases the past. I watch as Cressida signals the lights to be turned down so that there's better lighting on her precious Mockingjay with her little sister and the happy married couple, and I sit back in my chair, much more comfortable now that I'm hidden by the shadows of the corner of the room. The more time that passes, the more I tune out, and soon I've gone away in my mind completely, something I've become very accustomed to doing since my time as the Capitol's prisoner, and I don't even notice as the number of party guests begins to dwindle and the time stretches on well past midnight.

Someone suddenly sits down heavily beside me at the table, letting out a long sigh. "I really hate weddings."

I come back to myself and smile vaguely when Haymitch looks around to make sure Coin isn't watching before he produces a flask and two shot glasses from seemingly nowhere. I had a feeling he might have a secret stash. "You and me both. They're such a fucking joke."

"Cheers, kid." Haymitch holds up his shot glass, and I clink mine against his before we both down them with one swallow, Haymitch turning to look at me, shaking his blond hair out of his bleary blue eyes. He looks exhausted, as if he's just been through some kind of ordeal. "This whole night's kind of a drag, huh?" he asks.

"Kind of?" I snort with laughter. "Like you said. It's a wedding. Saying it's a drag is kind of redundant." I blink my eyes with fake sentiment. "Let's love each other _forever_!" I roll my eyes. "Please."

Haymitch grins, tipping over his flask to show that it has just a few drops left. "What would you say to going with me to the kitchens for a refill? I know Coin wouldn't exactly approve, but I've been, uh...distilling some of my own supply."

"You rebel." I smile back, following him out of the dining hall after he puts the flask and two shot glasses in his jacket pocket and leads the way into the empty kitchens and finally into the long, winding pantry, letting me pass in front of him, pulling the door shut behind us so no one will bother us, mercifully shutting out the cloyingly sweet wedding music from the dining hall.

"So what's eating you? Or is this just your usual fuck-the-world shit?" Haymitch leads the way to a barrel hidden at the very back, taking the lid off and dipping his flask in the liquid to fill it back up with something that smells like rubbing alcohol when he pours us two more shots.

"What do you care?" I swallow mine, coughing slightly when the second one doesn't go down quite as smoothly. "Jesus, this tastes like lighter fluid."

"Well, I don't craft it for the aromatic notes, sweetheart." Haymitch grins, affixing the top back onto his secret whiskey distillery barrel and sliding it back into hiding.

I shake my head with a smile. Haymitch and I have never been super-close, but I've always known him from victor circles and now from the Mockingjay Rebellion, and I like that he gives about as much of a shit as I do about everything, and we've always liked taking the piss out of each other. "You are _such_ a cliché, old man."

"Whereas your whole rebel-without-a-cause thing is completely new and original."

"Fuck you. I wouldn't be living in this shithole if I didn't have a cause."

Haymitch grins at me, leaning back against the pantry shelves on one side. "Okay, then. Remind me. What exactly is your cause again, Johanna Mason?"

I lean back against the shelves on the other side, narrowing my eyes. "What's yours? Setting the world-record for highest blood alcohol level when you finally drink yourself to death?"

"I like that, actually. But you're avoiding the question. Why do you even care about any of this?"

"Why do you?'

"The Capitol's been fucking me over my entire life." Haymitch shrugs. "I think Katniss is the first person in over seventy-five years who actually has a prayer of stopping them, so I'm fighting with her until the end. What about you?"

I sigh, speaking after we do another shot. "Same." I look up at him for a long moment as he switches to drinking straight out of the flask. "Haymitch, can I tell you something?"

"Sure, kid."

"I think the way you won your year was brilliant. My mentor had me watch the Second Quarter Quell in training…and you were amazing."

Haymitch's blue eyes darken, and he lets out a humorless laugh. "Oh, yeah. Amazing."

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're going be all sanctimonious about this like everybody else. It's not called the "Make-Friends-and-Be-Nice-Games." So you killed people. You had to. I'm so fucking tired of people acting like you and I are some kind of monsters just because we played the games the way they're meant to be played." I pour myself another shot, and I'm embarrassed to find my hands shaking as I pour and drink it.

"You don't ever think about it? You don't ever think about all the people you killed?" Haymitch looks at me dubiously.

"No," I lie quickly, suddenly feeling as though the air is too hot and still in this enclosed space.

"Uh-huh. No self-medication for you, ever, huh?" He looks down at the IV marks in the crook of my left arm. I've pumped so much morphling through my veins (my morphling and whatever Katniss will let me siphon from her stash) that I've already killed one vein and had to switch to another, and my arm's starting to look pretty disgusting, the dead vein bruised and blackened from the overuse. The way Haymitch is looking at my track marks, it's almost like he knows, everything, how much I need the morphling, how much I steal from Katniss, all of it.

"Shut the fuck up." I set down his flask hard on the shelf behind me, glaring up at him.

Haymitch moves closer to me, his voice dangerously quiet. "You know how the Capitol paid me back for playing their Games so 'amazingly' well? For my little trick with the force field that showed them up and made their big quarter quell look like a joke? When I got home to District 12 after my Victory Tour, I went into my house in the Victor's Village to find my mom, little brother and girlfriend all arranged, sitting side-by-side on the couch with axes planted in their skulls, just like the last tribute I killed in the games with the force field. Their bodies had been there for a long time. There were flies and maggots everywhere. The smell was unbearable. I couldn't even believe what I was seeing. I remember just stumbling out of the back door of the house into the woods and dry-heaving, trying to cry, trying to throw up, trying to do anything, but mostly just wandering around in a daze until the sun went down. When I went back to the house, it was burning. Someone from the Capitol had set it on fire. Freak accident, they said. They must have used something powerful, because the whole house was reduced to ashes. No trace of the bodies. No trace of anything really. My girlfriend's family was gone too, but I never knew what happened to them. The Capitol moved me into a different house in Victor's Village, and President Snow sent me a personal note with a white rose that just said—"_See? We can play tricks with axes too_."

His voice is emotionless as he relates the story, but I notice his hands are shaking violently as well as he reaches behind me to raise the flask to his lips to take another long swallow. _He's never told anyone that whole story,_ I realize. Seized by a sudden impulse, I reach out, covering his hands with mine, gripping them tightly. Haymitch lets the empty flask fall to the floor, tears suddenly filling his eyes, refusing to look at me until I raise one of my hands to his stubble-covered cheek, forcing him to look at me, still holding his other hand as it falls back to his side, Haymitch suddenly gripping my waist with his other hand, my heart hammering in my chest when his eyes meet mine.

"Me too," I say quietly, my voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. "They did the same thing to me. They wanted me to be like Finnick. Snow wanted to fuck me after I won the games and then he wanted to sell me to the next highest bidder, but I refused, and fought back, nearly took his eye out with a fingernail, and when I got back to my district after my Victory Tour, my backyard was burning, and my entire family—my three younger sisters and my father and mother…" I drop my hand from his cheek, releasing his hand, unable to look at him when I tell the next part of this story, "…they were all gutted and hanging from the trees. I got my note and my white rose the next day as well. President Snow wrote me '_The next time you think of refusing me or the capitol remember that your father was chained and forced to watch as my men raped your mother and sisters until your whole family was begging for death_.'"

I realize that my eyes are burning with tears now as well. I've never told anyone this story either. "My little sisters…the oldest one had just turned twelve. They were the sweetest…the best…my parents too. Good people. Nothing like me." The alcohol is really hitting my system now, and I suddenly feel like I'm going to puke. "They had to watch me become a monster in front of the entire world. That was our family's legacy. I can't even imagine how ashamed they must have been to watch me kill all of those people like that. And then…for them to die so horribly…and it was all my fault." I press my lips together hard. "Finnick had the right idea after all. I should have just fucked Snow, and anybody else he wanted me to. What does it matter anyway? It's just sex. It's not like it makes any difference. Once you're a victor, the Capitol owns you anyway. I don't know what I was thinking."

"No, that's bullshit—" Haymitch shakes his head.

"Is it?" I laugh, a high, crazy sound, tears slipping down my cheeks, thinking about Finnick and Annie dancing on their wedding day in the next room over. "Finnick spent years sucking guys off in the Capitol to keep Annie alive, and look at them now—it worked. He got his happy ending. They're so in love it's disgusting." I rub my forehead wearily. "Most nights I can't sleep…so between nurse checks…I sneak out and just walk around the halls, and whenever I go past Finnick's room…the walls of this place are paper-thin, you know…I hear him in there with Annie, and it's like, enough already. How much sex can two people really have?"

"Uh…" Haymitch looks at a loss for words.

"I mean, do you know how _long_ it's been since I've gotten laid? Like really good and fucked? I know, I know, I shouldn't be thinking about things like that, I should just be focused on getting better, that's what my doctor keeps telling me in our sessions whenever I bring up anything other than my stupid fucking recovery…but it would be really nice to stop thinking about my recovery for once and just get laid, you know?" I'm laughing again, and I know I'm really drunk. "I mean, I have to hear my best friend fucking the love of his life every night, and sometimes, it's just like…I'm the ugly girl standing against the wall at the fucking high school dance, you know? Like Annie's my friend and everything, but come on, even the crazy girl gets to fuck the most gorgeous guy in the world every night. Katniss is a total bitch and she has two guys who'd cut off their right nut to smell a strand of her fucking hair, and sometimes it's just—"

"You're not ugly," Haymitch cuts me off. "I've always thought you were hot as hell. The whole axe-wielding bad-ass chick thing? I like it."

"What?" I blink, confused.

"I'm just saying. Friend to friend."

I narrow my eyes. "We're not that good of friends."

"Okay, then, forget it." Haymitch shrugs, his face flushing red, clearly embarrassed, going to shove past me.

But I stop him. I don't even really know why I stop him. Loneliness. Proximity. Who knows. But I grab his arm, stopping him before he can reach the door. "Wait. You want to fuck me?"

He looks me up and down. "I don't know. Might be better than going back to that stupid wedding."

I can't help but laugh. "The worst sex in the world would be better than going back to that damn wedding."

He laughs too. "Well, that definitely takes the pressure off."

"Shut up." I pull his jacket off his shoulders, shoving him up against the door, and he takes my face in his hands, kissing me. He's actually a really good kisser, and we're both just drunk enough to make the embrace frantic and rough and mindless, just like I like it, and it's so nice to just have someone actually want me for once.

When he hurriedly shoves my dress up around my hips and I undo his belt and pants, and he lifts me up against one of the shelves of the pantry and we start to fuck, it feels like it's been a hundred years since something's felt this good, and to me this is even better than drugs because it's a high that I'm not reaching alone and we make as much noise as we want since that stupid wedding music will cover it all up anyway, and soon we're going again, and again, and a long time later, we finally end up on the floor of the pantry, covered in flour and syrup and other random shit we've knocked off shelves, and he's on top of me, my legs splayed apart, my dress ripped up one leg all the way to my hip, Haymitch's clothes in various states of disarray as he rests his head against my chest, both of us laughing and gasping for breath alternately, Haymitch's hand resting over my one still bare breast, my hand tangled in his sweaty blond hair as I stare up at the ceiling, watching the flour particles float and settle over us.

"Worst sex of your life?" he asks with a small smile, looking up at me, actually sounding maybe a little happy, something I've never heard in Haymitch's voice before.

"Terrible." I smile back, and then we're kissing again, and I like how he really kisses me, not like I'm some little china doll that's going to break. Soft, sweet kisses have always turned my stomach. Why even fucking bother?

"What are we going to do about all of this?" He pulls away from me, looking around at the mess we've made of the pantry.

"Fuck it." I smile devilishly, sitting up and pulling my dress back up over my exposed breast. "Let them wonder."

I get to my feet, still covered in flour and syrup, my dress practically torn to shreds by our little three-time death match, holding out my hand for him to join me. Haymitch shakes his head with a laugh, zipping his pants back up and slipping his jacket back on, taking my hand after putting his flask in his jacket pocket and following me out of the pantry war zone, both of us laughing and making our way to Haymitch's compartment.

We pass by the doors to the dining hall on the way, hearing the wedding music still playing, but now that we've found something better to do, we don't begrudge them their nice little party. Let them make their sweet little movie about true love to stick it to the Capitol—Haymitch and I spend the rest of the night fucking each other senseless, and it feels like our own little rebellion. So it's not nice and it's not suitable for children and it's not going to inspire millions to believe in love or anything—it's ours, and it's something the Capitol can't touch, and for a moment, just a moment, we let ourselves pretend that we can still feel.

It's the first time in months I've woken up without an IV in my arm. And it's the first time in years—the first time in my whole adult life—that I've spent the night with somebody and actually woken up to find them still beside me. He's even kind of holding me, in a drunken Haymitch way, sleeping on his stomach next to me with one of his arms slung over my hip as I wake up on my side, looking at him through bleary eyes. He's snoring into his pillow, and I feel a small smile twist my lips as reality hits.

_He's still in bed with you because he's too fucking hungover to wake up and try to find some way to make you leave._

I've never been the kind of girl that guys make their girlfriend. I'm a random hookup, sometimes a fuckbuddy if I'm lucky, but never a girlfriend. I'm not pretty, or nice, and apparently, you have to be at least one of those things to be girlfriend material. And realistically, I shouldn't care that no one wants to be in a relationship with me—the idea of actually being in a relationship with another person sounds like the most exhausting thing in the world, and I'm sure I would get tired of the other person in a matter of hours and probably be on the verge of burying an ax in their back by day three. But it does start to suck when it feels like everyone else in the world, even emotional idiots like Katniss, is living out some epic love story while I'm just kind of hanging out in the corner and making sarcastic comments.

It started to really hit me that I actually might care that there was nobody I loved or who loved me back when Peeta and Annie and I were prisoners in the Capitol and they were beside themselves about Katniss and Finnick and blah fucking blah, and I realized that if the Capitol killed me, nobody would really care all that much.

Like, why did Snow even bother to kidnap me? I kept thinking, brooding more like, on the fact that if I died, maybe Finnick and Annie and a few other members of the rebellion who knew me (the ones I hadn't royally pissed off or been awful to) would be vaguely sad when, in a "Oh, today, we've lost another friend and soldier…" kind of way, and they'd all hug their soulmate and probably go celebrate the gift of life by having sex after my funeral, and soon after Katniss would do something amazingly cool and everybody would forget I ever existed or maybe, if I was lucky, remember me when they poured out a shot for their dead homies or something. I'd spent most of my life cultivating the image of not giving a shit about anything, but it was getting harder and harder to keep fighting so relentlessly for freedom and survival and a better life for everybody around me when I couldn't think of a single thing I really hoped or wanted for myself after all of this was over.

What in the hell had I fought through electrocution, brainwashing, beatings, and years of abuse from the Capitol _for_, anyway? To go back to District 7? Back to an empty home in the Victor's Village and memories of the family that had died because of me? Or burden the people of the rebellion by seeking shelter with them even though they didn't want me around and all had families they loved and homes they wanted to rebuild and usually just looked at me with pity?

Not Haymitch, though. Last night hadn't felt like pity. It had felt like understanding. Like an actual connection. I shifted slightly in bed beside him, swallowing nervously, my throat dry from drinking too much alcohol last night after not drinking any in such a long time. I hoped last night hadn't been pity.

Haymitch stirred in his sleep from my movement, rubbing his eyes with a groan. "I have to congratulate you, kid," he said into his pillow, his voice slightly slurred.

"On what?" I grinned.

"I have not had an actual hangover in _years_. And right about now I feel like there's a vice around my damn skull."

I went to sit up slightly, clutching the sheets to my chest, my head swimming, realizing that I had a hangover to match, falling back down beside him in bed. "Holy _shit_."

"You too?" Haymitch laughed, his eyes still closed, running a hand through his hair.

"If we don't go to breakfast, people are going to think we're dead or that we've defected and run off into the woods something." I looked over at him. "President Coin will notice if we're not there. They're probably already flipping out that I never checked back into the hospital last night."

"Oh yeah." Haymitch muttered, and I realized with a small shock of happiness that the thought of me being some kind of crazy escaped mental patient hadn't even crossed his mind. He opened sleepy eyes to look at me. "So what do you want to do?"

"I guess…we go to breakfast. Act like nothing's weird and that we didn't drink a shitload of your homemade contraband last night. Try not to vomit all over everyone." I laugh.

"Guess so." Haymitch makes himself get up despite the headache, pulling on a pair of sweatpants from off his floor and walking over to his closet to grab a holey grey t-shirt, looking over his shoulder to talk to me as he brushes his teeth at the little sink in his room. "You going to walk-of-shame it to the hospital to get some clothes, kid? Or do you want to just borrow a t-shirt and some sweatpants or something? I've got some with a drawstring so they'll fit your bony ass." He grinned, throwing them to me along with a black v neck t-shirt from his chest of drawers.

"Okay. I get it. I have the body of a fourteen-year-old boy. I know." I grumble, a pounding in my head and ears as I sit up in bed, looking away from the running water when he turns on the tap of his sink to wash the toothpaste out of his mouth, relieved when he spits and turns off the water. I feel latent anxiety from the running water tightening my stomach as I step into into the pants and pull the drawstring as tight as it will go before tying it into a double knot and yanking his t-shirt over my head, putting my arms throw the armholes, surprised to find him in front of me when I turn around.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," Haymitch says nervously, thinking I'm just mad because of the "bony ass" comment—which I am, a little, so I let him keep talking, "I like everything about…" Haymitch looks me up and down, as if deciding how to phrase things, "…what you have going on here. Your whole situation."

I raise an eyebrow, my mouth twisting into a small smile. "My _situation_?"

Haymitch sighs. "You know what I mean."

"I don't, actually." He really is fun to torment.

"Kid, you're killing me here. I'm talking about last night. It was…pretty great. Amazing. Can I say amazing?"

"If you want to sound like a woman, sure." I shrug.

Haymitch smiles back. "This is the last time I lend a beautiful girl my nice drawstring pants."

"Feel free and try to take them back. I double-knotted them." I say slowly, running my tongue over my lips, and I don't know if I'm still drunk—I'm thinking yes— but somehow my arms are snaking around his neck.

Haymitch shakes his head, looking down at me, his hands resting on my hips. "How does everything you say sound like sex?"

"Probably because you're still drunk too, idiot." I laugh when Haymitch lifts me up into his arms.

"I even like when you call me that." He kisses my neck as we stumble back to bed, and his hand's sliding under the t-shirt, up my bare back, and I know we're not going to breakfast anytime soon.

"And they say I'm the one with mental problems," I mutter against his mouth before he kisses me deeply, and by the time we finally make it down to the dining hall for breakfast, everyone else is already there, and it's pretty much impossible to make an inconspicuous entrance.

Haymitch and I are feeling much better though—really good sex is one hell of a hangover cure—and we manage to play it pretty cool walking in, I think. We enter the dining hall separately, me before Haymitch, and I find Katniss, Gale, Prim, Finnick, and Annie sitting at our usual table. Cressida and President Coin are sitting with Heavensbee at one of the other tables with the Head Doctor, and I can feel their eyes on me when I walk by, but I ignore them, willing myself not to speed up my pace or let them know I'm nervous in any way, deciding I can make up some kind of story about getting caught up in the wedding festivities and not making it back to the hospital last night, and oh golly gee, I'm so sorry and it will never happen again.

I walk over to our usual dining table after getting a glass of orange juice and a plate of toast and eggs—my stomach is still roiling slightly—and taking the empty seat at the end between Annie and Prim. Gale is telling some story about a new training module they're going to try out today in between massive bites of a bacon, ham, and egg sandwich he's wolfing down like it's his last meal on earth, and I start to feel slightly sick watching him eat. God in heaven, that boy can eat. Everything about Gale is just so over-the-top MAN. It's like he's trying to prove his masculinity all the damn time. We get it, dude. You eat lots of red MEAT. You make lots of big GUNS and BOMBS. Your man card gets all the requisite stamps. Chill the fuck out. I keep waiting for the day when Gale just whips his dick out at the breakfast table and is like "Look at it! LOOK! Say it's big enough!_ SAY IT!_" The mental image makes me smile to myself with a little laugh as I take a bite of my toast, looking up at the entrance to the dining hall to see Haymitch casually striding in as if he doesn't have a care in the world.

He really is just the epitome of cool, I think to myself, and he doesn't have to try at all, not looking tired or hungover or like he has a thing in the world to hide as he casually flops down in the chair next to Heavensbee, striking up a conversation with President Coin as if they're old friends. I laugh again, taking another bite of toast. Gotta admire the guy's balls.

"What's so funny?" Annie asks me curiously, following my eye line to the President's table.

"Oh…nothing, just…President Coin wears a skirt suit to breakfast." I cover quickly. "I wonder if she has a little pajama skirt suit she wears to bed."

Annie giggles. "Totally. And like sensible slipper pumps."

I laugh at the mental image, noticing Finnick's arm that's always draped over the back of Annie's chair and his left hand resting on her shoulder that now bears a silver wedding ring. "So how does it feel to be a married woman?" I ask her.

Annie smiles, her hand resting on Finnick's thigh almost unconsciously, and I try to ignore a dull, familiar stab of jealousy that twists slightly in my stomach. "To be honest? I'd almost given up on hoping that we'd ever get the chance to really get married. I never thought the Capitol would leave him alone. Leave us alone. And now…" Tears are actually shining in her green eyes. "…I didn't think it was possible to be this happy."

_Give me a fucking break. You signed a piece of paper. It's nothing to cry about. _I think to myself, but I force my mouth into a smile. "I'm so happy for both of you."

"Thank you." She blinks back tears. "You know, Finn and I have been talking and…we both think of you as practically a member of our family. Once this is all over…if you wanted to come back to District 4 with us…we'd be happy to have you."

This stuns me into silence for a moment. Finally, I clear my throat. "As in…to live with you?"

"Yes. I mean…as long as you wanted to. Until you got settled wherever you liked. You'd love it in District 4 though...wouldn't she, baby?" Annie rubbed Finnick's leg to get his attention, and he turned away from his conversation with Katniss and Gale.

"What, babe?" Finnick asked Annie.

"I was telling Johanna about our idea. About her coming to stay with us. After all of this is over."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, that'd be brilliant, Jo." Finnick looks directly at me and smiles, that blindingly white smile that still dazes me slightly when I'm not prepared for it. "Annie and I are going to get a little place right on the beach—we want our kids to be able to just run out the back door and have their feet in the ocean—and we'd love it if you'd come and stay with us."

I suddenly feel like the room is spinning with how fucking horrible this whole thing sounds. Living with Finnick and Annie in a house overrun with their adorable children—kids make me nervous as hell—as a vast expanse of dark hungry water beats endlessly against our back door? I want to jam a needle of morphling into my arm so badly right now it feels like a physical ache. But I try to keep a polite expression on my face even though it feels like my heart is thudding in my throat and my hands are shaking so violently I can't hold my silverware anymore. "That's really…nice, you guys. Thank you. I'll think about it."

"You never came to the hospital last night. Or this morning," Prim suddenly enters the conversation, looking at me in that eerie way she has as though she can read minds. "Are you feeling all right? You look pale."

I take a deep breath, and then another, but it's not helping. "Prim. You have the keys to the medicine cabinet, right?"

"Yes." Her authoritative, businesslike voice, with all traces of naiveté and little girl fantasies gone, is oddly comforting.

"Could we…could you…"

"Come on." Prim takes my hand, leading me out a side door of the dining hall without another word to anyone else, mercifully not forcing me to walk past the table where the President sits.

The hospital wing is empty when we enter it, and I sit down on the bed next to the medicine cabinet as Prim tosses her sheet of long blond interconnected braids over one shoulder and digs out the keys from her pocket and unlocks the cabinet. She sets up a morphling drip for me (with the appropriate amount) and once the IV is in my arm, I lay back on the bed, closing my eyes, unable to stop myself from letting out a groan of relief. "Jesus, that's good."

Prim sits down on the edge of my bed, watching me curiously, speaking after a long moment of silence. "I don't get it. You shouldn't still be in pain. Why do you still need this stuff?"

"Because it feels like the head rush you get from the best oral sex of your life." I breathe out, the drugs making me forget my audience is a sixteen-year-old girl for a moment, my head spinning. "Like an orgasm that doesn't end."

Prim turns off the drip, and I open my eyes with protest, sitting up on my elbows. "What the fuck, Prim?"

"That's all you need. More than enough, actually." She goes to take the needle out of my arm, and I grab her small wrist with a tight grip.

"It's enough when I say it's enough," I practically growl.

"I'm not afraid of you," Prim says simply.

"Big mistake, honey."

"What's going on in here?" Katniss' voice.

Prim and I both turn to see Katniss and Gale standing in the doorway of the hospital. I release my hold on Prim's wrist, embarrassed to see my handprint outlined on her pale skin as Katniss and Gale cross to us.

"Is everything okay, Prim?" Gale asks, taking a wide berth of my bed, his hand on Prim's shoulder as he looks at me accusatorily.

"Yeah, everything's fine." Prim looks over her shoulder at Gale, Katniss sitting down on the bed across from me, looking more exhausted than I've ever seen her as she lays back and stares up at the ceiling in silence. The rest of the morning medical staff is arriving now, and I hear Prim talking to them about me in a low voice, telling them not to give me any more morphling, no matter what I say. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep as they take the needle out of my arm and when Prim and Gale come back over to say goodbye to Katniss.

"We'll come and check on you later, Catnip, okay?" 

"Do what you gotta do, Gale. Stop looking at me like I'm going to die." Katniss laughs wearily. "I just need to get some sleep."

"I told them to give you something to help you relax," Prim's voice, so much kinder when it speaks to her sister. "I love you, Kat."

"I love you too, Prim." Katniss is already fading off to sleep, and I'm actually starting to drift away myself. It takes me a moment to even remember why I'm so tired, and then it all comes back to me—my night with Haymitch, the drinking, the sex, this morning in his compartment, sly smiles at each other before sneaking into the dining hall, all of that seems like a lifetime ago—morphling does that. It fucks with memories and your sense of time, and makes something good that happened an hour ago feel like it's decades out of your grasp, or like some horrible event that happened five years ago feel like a wound that just ripped open again.

I turn on my side, away from Katniss, pulling the scratchy hospital blanket over my bony frame and surrendering to the drugs, even just the small amount Prim allowed me, letting the morphling take me into a warm, hazy sleep where time and memories cannot be trusted but at least nothing hurts on the outside.

_"Jo, honey, wake up." Finnick's voice is gentle, but he's sitting on the very edge of the bed, as far away from me as possible. He's shirtless but wearing the green silk pajama pants he always favors when he spends the night in his Capitol apartment, and he's cracked open the blinds to allow in streaks of the glaring metallic light of the sunlight glinting off the Capitol skyscrapers that cut across my naked body mostly hidden underneath the pristine white sheets of his massive king sized bed. _

_ I blink in the sunlight, my head pounding from the aftermath of way too many shots knocked back clubbing in the Capitol last night with Finnick—everyone wanted to buy us drinks, everyone wanted to get pictures with the two Victors out together, especially such recent Victors—I only won the Hunger Games two years ago, and the entire Capitol worships Finnick and always has. _

_We came down to the Capitol as mentors for the 73__rd__ Hunger Games Tribute Parade, and when I asked Finnick why Mags was with him but no Annie, he just shook his head and gave me a dark look, muttering, "Don't ever fall in love. It's a bloody nightmare."_

_I didn't bring Annie up again, but he did after Finnick and I hit the bars together later that night and he had a few too many drinks in him, telling me that he'd come clean with her about what he really did during his "trips" to the Capitol, what Snow forced him to do, how he had to sell his body to whoever would pay the price in order to keep his family in District 4 safe, how it didn't mean anything when he was with those other women and (mostly) men, how he'd only ever loved her and didn't want to be with anyone else ever…but none of it had been enough of an explanation. _

"_She was disgusted," Finnick shook his head, swallowing the last of the fifth bright green martini somebody bought him, "and I don't blame her. Who wouldn't be? I've been cheating on her for years and bloody lying about it—"_

"_It's not cheating," I rolled my eyes, leaning forward and practically having to yell into his ear so he could hear me over the thumping bass of the club music. "Or it's not the same as cheating. She should know that. She's a Victor too. We live fucked-up lives. You did what you had to do to keep her and Mags alive." _

"_Yeah, well, I wish Annie could see it that way." Finnick looked down at me, the flashing lights of the club making his astonishing eyes look alternately almost black and then electric green as they met mine. _

"_So, what, did the two of you break up?" I ask, suddenly feeling as though my throat's gone completely dry when he looks at me like he's looking at me right now. _

"_She told me we're done, so I assume so." _

"_I'm sorry."_

"_It's fine." Finnick shrugs, a forced indifference in his voice that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I think a part of me always knew I was too fucked up to make a real relationship work anyhow. She's probably doing me a favor. No more guilt. I can just live my life here now. I'm a free man." He and I do another shot, snort some white powder off his palm from the little baggie he always has in pants pocket that always guarantees we'll have a good night, and then Finnick throws his arm around my shoulders. "Come on. Let's dance." He pulls me out to the dance floor, and it's clear that tonight is going to be about getting fucked up and forgetting everything else in our miserable lives. I'm only too happy to oblige him there since that's how I spend most of my nights. _

_We start off just dancing and laughing like friends, but soon we're covered in sweat, and rubbing against each other, and his thin, tapered fingers, so skillful with making nets and tying knots and I assume taking off clothes, are brushing the hem of my short skintight gold dress, my arms around his shoulders. He's just drunk and lonely, I remind myself, don't do anything to screw things up with the only real friend you have. _

_But I've always been much better at listening to the devil on my shoulder than the angel, if I even have one of those—and Finnick and I have always been very good at helping each other indulge our self-destructive tendencies, so when his hand moves down to my ass and my hand slides into the sweat-soaked hair at the back of his neck, I pull him down to me as he pulls my body into his, and our open mouths meet hard. My lips have gone numb at this point of the night from the mixture of too much alcohol and the powder, and even when our tongues tangle together with almost violent force and I push him up against a wall in the corner, I don't feel anything when he kisses me. It's not just because my lips are numb either. My heart doesn't really speed up. My mind doesn't go blank, like we're the only two people in the world, like everybody always says it's supposed to when you're kissing somebody you love. I'm still very aware of all the other people in the club, especially the photographers taking pictures of us, and all I can think about is how Annie will feel when she sees these pictures. I still hear the pounding club music, and the more we kiss, the more I start to feel a little sick and exhausted, like I wish we were just hanging out in comfy clothes as friends away from all of this Capitol nonsense. _

_It doesn't make any sense. I shouldn't even be thinking about all of this. I should be thinking about the fact that Finnick is kissing me. I've had a thing for Finnick since I met him, but the idea of actually having a chance with him has always just been this vague, unattainable joke because he's always been with Annie and she's my friend too. I know that even doing this now is completely stupid and wrong, but at least they're broken up, and besides, shouldn't the whole idea of it being illicit and wrong make it feel even more dangerous and sexy? But it just feels kind of like how I imagine making out with a brother would feel, if I had a brother. He's not a bad kisser or anything, it's just…weird. Wrong. But we're drunk and high and he doesn't stop it, so neither do I. Eventually we're making out in the back of a cab and then in his Capitol apartment, and then we have sex, and it's pretty terrible—he loses his hard-on halfway through, and I tell myself it's because he's really, really drunk—I'm actually impressed he could even get it up at all with the amount of liquor he's imbibed—and after he loses it, Finnick rolls off of me and looks absolutely miserable. Like, tears in his eyes, miserable. _

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He won't look at me, tears slipping down his cheeks._

"_Dude, it's all right." I look at him with a little laugh. "You don't have to cry about it. Weird shit happens during sex, even to the great Finnick Odair. Sometimes even you drink too much and can't keep your dick hard. I'll try not to take it too personally, I promise."_

"_You know you're my best friend in the world, don't you? My best friend." Finnick takes my face in his hands, kissing me softly on the mouth. "I love you to bits; I don't know what I'd do without you."_

"_Okay." I look at him, confused._

"_I just…I can't make love to someone I'm not in love with. I'm sorry." Finnick kisses me once more, this time on the forehead. "Sleep here with me though, okay? Don't go." He rolls over in the bed next to me, and seems to be asleep within seconds. _

_I try not to laugh out loud at the idea of Finnick not being able to be with someone he's not in love with, since fucking randoms is how he pays for his entire life, but part of me is a little relieved that we didn't end up really going all the way through with it. I fall asleep next to him eventually, and the next morning, he makes me breakfast, and we go back to being friends, doing our best to ignore the awkwardness between us. _

_He tells me years later that Annie knows all about what happened—when they got back together, they made a promise to always be completely honest with each other, and he told her about our little rendezvous in the Capitol. Apparently she lives pretty off in the grid in District 4, and hadn't heard about it from any press. She forgave Finnick for all of his indiscretions, including the one with me apparently, and told me—in one of the most awkward conversations of my life—that she forgives me too, and we've all three stayed friends. And even though I don't really want him like that, and know firsthand that we're better off as friends, there's still a little part of me that's jealous of her, jealous of what they have. I mean, he's the person who's supposed to like me best of anyone in this world—not to mention a professional whore—and he couldn't even stomach guilty one night stand sex with me. That's just humiliating. If Finnick Odair won't even fuck you…_

"Johanna?"

I wake up to see Katniss sitting on the edge of her bed, watching me. "What?"

"You rested?"

"Uh…I guess. Why?"

"I need to talk."

"Don't you have your family? Or Gale? Or your millions of adoring fans or something?"

"I want to talk to you. It's about Peeta."

A/N- Until Chapter Two! Reviews make my day, if you feel so inclined…:)


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